


In Death

by snowshus



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Blood, Holding Hands, M/M, Major Character Injury, Period Typical Attitudes, Temporary Character Death, The Crusades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:27:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25386016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: Nicky meets Joe
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 3
Kudos: 61
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	In Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/gifts).



> thanks to bai_lailah for reading this over for me!

Nicolo knew it was perhaps a little morbid, but he had always been fond of his first death. He’d met his Yusuf that day. He’d like to say he’d noticed him even before, had seen him across the field and felt that pull. That is how Joe describes it, but he is a hopeless romantic, prone to fits of poetry. The truth is, Nicky did not notice the man he killed. He was just one more infidel soldier among so many. His blade had slid between the joins of the soldier’s armor deep into his guts. It would be a long slow death as blood spilled out of the hole he’d made and into organs and onto the sands around Jerusalem. He would have granted mercy. He was going to follow his blow with a quicker cut across the throat to grant the man a faster death. But the soldier had pulled a smaller blade from its sheath as he fell and dug it into Nicky’s leg down and across and through an artery. It was a quick death. Each heart beat mixed more of their blood together as they died.

He’d woken in a pile of bodies, crawling out of the stiff clammy putrid heap his wound miraculous healed. He had been a pious man back then, raised in the shadow of a monastery and devoted to God. Besides, he was not the first to rise from seeming death, medicine was less sophisticated then. It had been considered a gift from God by his brothers in the Knights Templar, except for Michele to whom he had confessed his sins of lust - the impure desires he’d felt for his fellow men. Michele knew him to be impure, to have gone to battle with unclean thoughts. Though he’d said nothing at the time, Nicky knew what he was thinking. Heaven had rejected him. Nicky thought it too. They did not speak of this belief. To go on crusade was to have all one’s sins forgiven, both past and future. It had been decreed by his Holiness himself. It had been a promise from God. If that was not true-so many of the men with them were lay people, it would cast doubt on his Holiness. It would cause disarray and dissertation. Perhaps it was because he had thought the soldier he had killed's eyes to be deep and kind that had caused him to be cast down, back to Earth. Perhaps it was because he still dreamed of him. How much worse was it in God's eyes to think on impure desires with an infidel than another christian? He confessed again and he did his penance. He cleansed his soul and spent the next week in prayer. God had granted him a second chance, instead of throwing him straight to hell. He would be ready when death came for him again.

He saw the soldier he’d killed only a week later, apparently also miraculously recovered. He wouldn’t be recovering again. This time Nicky was not the one who could claim the killing blow, the soldier was already dying. Nicky would not have even noticed had he not caught Nicky’s leg as he walked past. The soldier said something in a language Nicky hadn’t learned yet, but he didn’t need to know the words to know what was being asked for, begged for. The soldier had been skewered open, his intestines dragging in the ground, another slow painful death. He doesn’t know quite what had possessed him at the time to kneel down and take the soldier’s hand, to give him the only comfort he knew to give a dying man. The prayers do not come though he wants to grant them. He doesn’t know what this man would want to hear, what sins he would need forgiveness for. He brings the soldier’s hand to his chest and bends to press a kiss to the man’s forehead. 

“May your God grant you peace.” 

Then he brought his sword down on the soldier’s neck, granting him a quick death.

He was so shocked to see the soldier again at the next battle, he didn’t get his shield up in time and was dead before he gathered his wits. His life blood poured out his chest and he thought surely God will not turn him away a second time.

He woke up and the soldier was beside him. They were away from the battlefield, away from both their people, in a village outside the city that had been abandoned weeks ago. He didn’t yet understand when the soldier spoke. It would be awhile before they’d learn to speak to each other. The soldier pointed to himself as he spoke and pointed to Nicky and took his hand and threaded their fingers together. He held their adjoined hands up, looking at Nicky with that please understand me look that seemed to cross cultures. And maybe Nicky did understand him. The soldier’s face had been haunting his dreams for weeks and Nicky knew he had killed him at least once for sure. And Nicky knew he had died at least twice as well. Perhaps they were joined in some way, destined to kill each other forever - both of them rejected from their own versions of heaven. 

The soldier pointed to himself again as he talked, explained in words Nicky can’t quite understand something, then he pointed to Nicky. He kept his hand open after in a placating gesture and drew a knife. He pointed to himself again and then to Nicky and then drew the blade down the inside of his own arm. Blood welled up quickly and spilled down his hand and over his wrist to water the ground. He took Nicky's hand and pressed the knife to the inside of his arm. 

Nicky nodded and the knife dug in and dragged down, opening his own veins and once again their bloods mixed on the ground between them. Nicky held onto the soldier’s hand until he couldn’t stay awake anymore, until the last of his blood ran out. 

He woke still holding Joe’s hand and he had never let go.


End file.
